With moon checked off, India sets eyes on sun with Aditya-L1 mission

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
29 Aug 2023 23:36

The launch of India's new mission Aditya-L1 is scheduled for September 2.

ISRO Chairman S. Somanath arrives to address the media after the successful landing of spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 on the moon at ISRO's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network facility in Bengaluru, India, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023. (AP)

Days after India landed a spacecraft on the Moon as part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, the country's space agency, Isro, prepared to launch a new satellite, later this week, in the hope of studying the Sun.

The Aditya-L1 satellite, "is scheduled for September 2,” according to a post by Isro, and will take off via the PSLV XL rocket from India’s main spaceport, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in southern Andhra Pradesh state’s Sriharikota.

It is worth noting that the word Aditya means "Sun" in Hindi, and the new Indian endeavor is aimed at studying the Sun from space, for the first time, and observing its effects on space weather phenomena, such as solar storms in real time.

The significance of this step is that given that various radiations emitted by the Sun do not reach the Earth, the spacecraft will be able to observe and study the effects of such radiation from outside the Earth's atmosphere.

To get a consistent and unobstructed view of the Sun, the Indian space agency plans to launch the spacecraft into a halo orbit at the Lagrange Point 1 (L1), which is roughly 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

“The total travel time from launch to L1 would take about four months for Aditya-L1,” the space agency said.

According to solar physicist Dibyendu Nandi, from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Kolkata, “The mission is our first space-based attempt to understand the Sun’s dynamic activity and monitor our space environment."

India becomes first nation to land spacecraft near Moon's south pole

India became the first country to land a vehicle near the Moon's south pole last Wednesday, August 23; a historic victory for the world's most populous country and its ambitious, low-cost space program.

The unmanned Chandrayaan-3, which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit, landed at 6:04 pm India time (1234 GMT) to raucous applause from mission control personnel.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi waved an Indian flag on a live broadcast to announce the mission's success from the BRICS summit in South Africa. He addressed the "people of the world," calling the success that of "all of humanity," and not only India's.

Chandrayaan-3 launched over six weeks ago and had to orbit the Earth multiple times in order to gain speed before going on its month-long voyage.

Since entering lunar orbit on August 5, the lander, Vikram, has been delivering photographs of the Moon's surface. After its landing, a solar-powered rover will investigate the surface and send data back to Earth over the course of two weeks.

The low-budget space program of India has increased in size and speed since it put a spacecraft into orbit around the Moon in 2008.

The current mission cost $74.6 million, which is far less than that of other countries and a tribute to India's inexpensive space engineering.

Skilled engineers who earn only a fraction of foreign engineers' wages made all this possible by replicating existing technology.

India became the first Asian country to place a craft around Mars in 2014 and plans to send a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit next year. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was looking forward to Wednesday's landing after the failure of its former 2019 mission when the mission control lost touch with the Chandrayaan-2 lunar module just before its scheduled landing.

Only Russia, the United States, and China have previously accomplished controlled Moon landings.